Browsing by Author "Jansen, A."

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    Investigating the significance of the 2008 Matric curriculum on first-year Economics performance
    (UNISA Press, 2011) Dlomo, Z.; Jansen, A.; Moses, M.; Yu, Derek
    The academic success of first-year Economics students has been the focus of many South African studies in Economic Education. Many used the last school examination (Matric) results as a proxy for students’ academic ability. In 2008 a new Matric curriculum was introduced. Given various changes in the curriculum, the question arises as to whether Matric results are still significant in explaining academic performance, and whether the matriculants from the 2008 curriculum perform differently. Factors such as the students’ time spent on studying outside lectures, their work status, and the impact of using an English textbook on the performance of non-English speakers are also investigated. A two-step Heckman model is applied to investigate the performance of Economics students at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The main results are that students who matriculated under the new curriculum, worked part-time, spent less time studying, and are not English-speaking perform worse.
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    The targeting of zero-rated basic foodstuffs under value-added tax (VAT) in South Africa
    (Bureau for Economic Research (BER), 2013) Jansen, A.; Stoltz, E.; Yu, Derek
    Since the inception of VAT in South Africa, various studies have been conducted to investigate the distributional impact of the tax as well as the effectiveness of zero-rating as tool to alleviate the burden on poor households. This paper argues that the targeting of the zero-rated basket can be improved to enhance the intended equity gain. Using the food category of vegetables as a case study, and distinguishing between sub-groups of vegetables, this paper conducts tax incidence analyses to compare the relative burden of VAT on different categories of vegetables for various income groups. The findings suggest that canned vegetables should be included in the zero-rated basket, frozen vegetables should remain zero-rated, but some (not ‘basic’) fresh vegetables should be taxed at the standard rate. It also strongly suggests that the specific items in the zero-rated basket should be reviewed on a regular basis.